Columns over the next few days may betray a slight French accent: we're just back from a short break in Paris. Alone in that agreeably autumn city, the sumptuous decoration of Galleries Lafeyette - like Binns, only 100 times grander - suggests that Christmas is but six anxious weeks away.

In Darlington, however, the singing Santa - an automaton for which the word "egregious" may originally have been intended - was shamelessly restored to The Cornmill shopping centre in our absence.

It's towards Darlington that we are also pointed by Mr Dennis Wearmouth. After the recent Gadfly mass-mischief over when Sunderland last scored at Wembley - Alan Sunderland, 1979 FA Cup final - Dennis gets in first with the question about when Darlington last scored in the first division.

It was on Saturday - Bradford City 3 Wimbledon 5; Dons' midfielder Jermaine Darlington adding his side's fifth in the 83rd minute.

Thus we proceed: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, as probably they say in gay Paris.

CHRISTMAS? Ken Fisher kindly sends a cutting from the Darlington Advertiser about an autumn fair at St Cuthbert's Church with the festive promise of "tombola, home made cakes, plants, bric-a-brac and Christmas gits."

AT the Hotel Terminus du Nord, opposite one of Paris's principal railway stations, the best ways of tracking events back home are through CNN news and the European edition of The Guardian.

From CNN, slotted between the economic situation in Ecuador and the Dalai Lama's meeting in Mongolia, we learned of the death of Lonnie Donegan; from The Guardian of the passing of Robert Nixon.

Mr Nixon was born in South Bank, died 63 years later in Guisborough. He'd spent all his adult life illustrating children's comics, the man who visualised Roger the Dodger, gave colour to Little Plum Your Redskin Chum - readers may award themselves 100 points for the name of Plum's horse - drew strips with glorious names like Frankie Stein ("a bolt-headed buffoon"), Pesky Mo and Kid Kong, a giant boy gorilla.

A still more substantial Times obituary a few days later also credited him with impressively reviving that old whipper-snapper Grandpa, a feat of artistic resuscitation which had long appeared impossible.

He'd studied at Middlesbrough College of Art, dropped out, first submitted work to the Beano in 1974 and became renowned both for his professionalism and for his prolific work rate. "He could illustrate a note to the milkman and make it look appealing," said Euan Kerr, the Beano's editor since 1984.

His characters, added The Times, were almost always charming rascals. At his peak he produced nine pages a week.

Robert Nixon's pride and joy, however, was Ivy the Terrible - neatly named, boldly drawn and a Beano survivor for 17 years. The punning title defies translation: in France, Ivy would simply have been L'Enfant Terrible.

IN comics like Beano and Dandy, the titles - and sub-titles - were almost as ingenious as the artwork. Remember Bertie Buncle and his Chemical Uncle, Big Chief Itchy Snitch and (honest) The King with the Cauliflower Conk? Early strips were simple alliterations - Pansy Potter, Hungry Horace, Dirty Dick, Keyhole Kate - or rhymes like Beryl the Peril and Jammy Mr Sammy. Later efforts became more adventurous.

Remember Jo White and Her Seven Dwarves, Screwy Driver and Calamity James, Claude Hopper (who had outsize feet) and Greedy Pigg, one of many comic strips about life in school. The Dandy once had a strip called Our Teacher's a Walrus. The Gadfly favourite, before political correctitude proved no laughing matter, was a Beano feature about a little lad with an over-active imagination. It was called Les Pretend, sub-titled "He's round the bend." Readers may have favourites of their own.

ROBERT Nixon also drew a work of art called Gums, a marine predator whose false teeth kept falling out and was therefore not to be confused with Jaws.

Whilst no oily painting, Gums may have been a piscine pin-up compared to the feller on the right.

It's an escolar, enigmatically encountered in last week's Eating Owt column and also intriguing John Constable - good artistic name, that - in Butterknowle, Co Durham.

Before founding the lamented Butterknowle Brewery, John ran a splendid seafood pub called the Chainlocker, opposite North Shields ferry landing and perfectly placed for the fish quay.

Like the Eating Owt column, however, he'd never got his teeth into an escolar. His English, French, Italian and Spanish dictionaries were all unable to help; a trawl through his library of cook books proved equally unrewarding.

On a website called Seafood Direct, however, the persistent Mr Constable finds escolar tagged "a delicious, creamy white fish with a melt in the mouth texture".

Another website, however, claims that complaints against escolar escalated so greatly that the chief inspector of Billingsgate Market became involved. The Eating Owt column had merely wondered if it might be an anagram: a fishy business altogether.

PAUL Conroy, another brewer of the column's happy acquaintance - makes his own at the admirable Grey Horse in Consett - suggests that Tesco may be being a little over-enthusiastic with their catchphrase. On the lavvy door at the Consett branch is the inscription: "Gent's toilet. Every little helps."

BACK to the French connection, and a tourist leaflet issued by the Borough of Darlington - "Ou la qualite devient realite," it proclaims.

The leaflet, depicting the town's principal attractions - Caserne des pompiers, sculpture de train, Centre et musee du Chemin de Fer - is entitled: Darlington: Guide de Poche.

In view of recent threats made by Miss Victoria Beckham against Peterborough United Football Club, known as Posh before she was so much as a twinkle, the Borough should seek counsel's advice immediately.

...and finally, Harry Foster in Northallerton read in last Monday's paper that King Fahd of Arabia is urging his citizens to pray for rain to improve the annual average of just six inches. Harry has an alternative rain making suggestion - "Get him to introduce the game of cricket to his desert kingdom instead."

Published: 13/11/2002